approve-github-stack

name	approve-github-stack
description	Review and approve every eligible pull request in a GitHub stacked PR stack. Use when the user asks to approve a whole stack identified by a stack number, pull request number or URL, or branch.

Approve a GitHub stack

Approve all reviewable pull requests in one GitHub stack without making the user approve each layer separately.

Preconditions

• Require the GitHub CLI and the github/gh-stack extension. If gh stack --help fails, stop and report that the extension is not installed. Do not install it unless the user asks.
• Run gh auth status and verify the repository with gh repo view --json nameWithOwner,url.
• Accept a stack number, pull request number or URL, or branch as the stack identifier. If the user did not provide one, use the stack containing the current branch. If there is no unambiguous current stack, ask for an identifier.

Resolve the stack

1. Record the current branch.
2. When an identifier was supplied, run gh stack checkout <identifier>. Before checking out another stack, require a clean worktree. Never discard, stash, or overwrite local changes.
3. Run gh stack view --json. Use its branches array as the authoritative stack membership and preserve its bottom-to-top order.
4. Select entries with a PR whose state is OPEN. Report branches with no PR and PRs that are merged or queued, but do not review them.
5. Verify each selected PR belongs to the current repository and that its base follows the preceding stack branch, with the bottom PR based on the stack trunk. Stop before approving anything if membership or ordering is inconsistent.

Review

For every selected PR, from bottom to top:

1. Read its title, body, author, draft state, base and head branches, checks, existing reviews, and mergeability with gh pr view.
2. Inspect the layer's own diff with gh pr diff. Judge it relative to its PR base, not relative to the repository trunk, so changes from lower layers are not reviewed repeatedly.
3. Do not approve a draft, a PR authored by the authenticated user, a PR with unresolved review threads, or a PR with a correctness, security, or merge-blocking problem. Report the blocker precisely.
4. If the authenticated user's latest review is already APPROVED, mark the PR as already approved and do not submit a duplicate review.

Approval is authorization to submit reviews, not permission to merge. Never merge or enqueue any PR as part of this skill.

Approve

If every selected PR is reviewable and no blocking issue was found, approve each one from bottom to top:

gh pr review <pr-url> --approve

Do not request confirmation for each PR: the user's request to approve the stack authorizes one approval review per eligible layer. Continue after an individual command failure so the remaining independent approvals are attempted, but never describe a failed approval as successful.

Afterward, query every selected PR again and verify that the authenticated user's latest review is APPROVED. Restore the original branch if stack resolution changed it. Report:

• the repository and resolved stack
• each PR URL and whether it was approved, already approved, skipped, blocked, or failed
• any branch that could not be restored

Never claim that the whole stack was approved unless every eligible open PR has a verified approval from the authenticated user.